The Seekers of the Fabled Limelight
by KareKadi
Summary: So basically, if you stick a self-obsessed Max, a very camp Fang, a pervy Gazzy, and the rest of the Flock in front of the cameras at the X-Factor studios, there will be...results. Fax, Mari, and a bunch of others I don't know the names for! R&R please!


"What's for supper, Max?"

"Whatever we manage to find in the dumpster, honey," I cooed at Nudge, tearing my eyes from the mirror to make one of those slightly disturbing maternal noises I'm so good at in her direction (considering I'm only fourteen, don't you think I do a pretty amazing job at looking after them? Yeah? And you _know_ it, bitch).

She frowned. "Max, Angel's doing that _thing_ again."

"What thing?" I asked. Maybe it was time Angel and I sat down to chew the fat over the facts of life. In fact, maybe we _all_ could! I mean, _I've_ got no idea where babies come from. Jeb told me Ikea one time, but I sure never _saw_ any babies in there… maybe Woolworths.

"You _know_ what I mean… where she has a like totally casual conversation with you but she keeps saying things that don't make like any sense in the middle? And then you ask what she said and she says she didn't say it, but you know she did, and she's just lying, and then she grins and makes like ka-_pow_ noises and says that I won't look at her like that when she's got access to nuclear missiles instead of basic mentally manipulative skills featuring the ability to influence, direct, and also scan thought processes? Y'know what I mean, Max? D'you know what I mean, huh?"

"I sure do." I turned my head slightly so that the passing winds had the privilege of blowing through my hair in a dramatic and striking way. "Yes, Nudge, I know exactly what you mean." I bared my teeth in the direction of the sun and the sun glinted off them obligingly. God, I was so bloody awesome I almost made my_self_ jealous – I couldn't even _begin_ to imagine how the rest of the Flock must feel around me. Their eyes probably got greener than Gazzy's snot. "In fact, Nudge, I so completely understand what you're saying that I'm going to _do_ something about it. Right now! Yes, I will now _do_ _something_ about this situation!" I took up my mirror again and practised snarling in a manner that could function both in front of Erasers and on the catwalk. Yes, Maximum Ride definitely was one _gorgeous_ girl.

"Were you listening, Max?" Nudge tugged my mirror away, frowning again and pulling a pout that, frankly, could _never_ compete with mine. I mean, she just didn't put the _time_ in. If she wanted a really ferociously _sexy_ snarl, she _needed_ to put the hours in – you're not just _born_ with looks (well, _most_ people aren't. But then, I'm not most people!). They come with _practice_.

But jeez, that kid was so _whiny_! She needed to be taught how to respect her elders and infinitely more betters, so I grabbed the mirror back, threw it at her feet, made my snarl, and stormed out – never forgetting that I had to keep my head tilted so that she could see my most flattering profile – of course, _all_ my profiles are flattering, but this one _specially_ so – at all times. And then I threw my wittiest comeback over my shoulder with all the sinuous grace of a belly-dancer (incidentally, I'm an _excellent_ belly-dancer) but with all the captivating acidity of a witty lemon (they make them that way at the School and I've got a lot in common with them):

"Frowning gives you _frown_ lines, homegirl!"

"Max… what about Angel?" Nudge's voice floated over the obliging wind towards my perfect shell-likes, but for her own good I paid it no heed. If she ever wanted to become even a _twentieth_ as awesome as I was someday, she'd have to see how awesomeness could be personified.

And naturally, whatever I did _was_ awesomeness personified, so there was no need for her to concern herself with anyone except me. _Especially_ not Angel. No, not _Angel_… with her long curly blonde hair and big blue eyes and bloody perfect peaches-and-cream skin and snowy white wings and innocent expression and mind-moulding ways and –

But I'd deal with Fang later. I mean Nudge. I mean _Angel_. I mean –

"Hey, Gazzy," I said, spotting him and Iggy sitting with Angel at the table in the corner, and flipping my blondish locks back over one shoulder. "D'you wanna see my sexy snarl, huh?"

Iggy pulled a face. An ugly one. An uglier one than usual. But then, everyone looks ugly next to me. "Max, that's obscene."

"What?"

"Hitting on a seven-year-old boy."

"I wasn't hitting on Gazzy!

"It's OK, Ig, I don't mind," Gazzy said, and smiled at me encouragingly. "Go on, I don't mind seeing the sexy snarl!"

"He's your _brother_!" Iggy wailed.

"God, don't pee your _pants_!" I huffed in a fetching manner and walked off. Actually, it was more of a sashay. Like, a catwalk sashay? I sashayed off, leaving Gazzy waiting, and the only downside of this was that the sashay was wasted on Ig. He'd _never_ be awesome if he couldn't see to copy my example.

"Max!" Nudge howled, racing down the corridor after me. I signalled 'whatever' at her over my shoulder with my thumbs and first fingers, noticing as I did that my nails were in perfect shiny shape today. Excellent. Nudge would _never_ be a hand model if she didn't have someone as immaculately coiffed as the one and only Maximum Ride around to influence her in her formative years. "No, _seriously_, Max, Angel's got the phone, she's actually gonna _do_ it this time! _Max_!"

"Hey, Fang," I said. He was sitting in a darkened room looking moodily at the floor and working on his image. That was what I liked about him. We _both_ spent hours and hours practising our image, rehearsing lines and poses and expressions that would be sure to catch the attentions of our hordes and hordes of fangirls. Yeah, _I'm_ a girl. But no one can resist Maximum, what_ever_ their gender! I'm like a lust magnet. People just get drawn to me. I don't know if it's the looks, the personality, the brains, or the sheer amazingness behind everything I do and say, but I guess it must be a combination of all three. I mean four. And something else… some mysterious x-factor no one else on this planet has…

"Except Leona Lewis," Angel whispered, appearing suddenly at my side like a ridiculous plot twist in a poorly written crime novel – surprisingly and a bit of a letdown, I mean.

"Buzz off, vanilla face!" I shrieked, and she muttered something about watching too much Borat and buzzed right off. "Sorry about that, Fang," I said, lowering my silkily velveteen voice once more and turning on all my honeyed seductive charm for him. _No_ one had ever resisted it. Not even Ari. You thought he seemed unnecessarily upset when he found out we were brother and sister? Yeah, well, now you know why.

But even Iggy, aka Mr Morals '08, couldn't see anything wrong with trying to seduce _this_ brother. "You wanna see my sexy snarl?"

Fang grunted and flicked his fringe in a way that had fangirls swooning across the globe. It was OK that he'd turned my offer down; I respected him for keeping in character. Even though the Patterson was nowhere near, Fang always liked to be ready for our next appearance.

"It's OK," I assured him, "you're safe. You can stop now."

"Yeah?"

"Well…" I had a quick look in the mirror. Yeah, I still looked bloody gorgeous. "Yeah. Go on, lighten up."

"Max!" Nudge screamed. "She's done it, she's done it, I told you she would but you wouldn't listen and now there's no way I can stop it, we're set on an inexorable unstoppable unalterable path and no one can save us except –"

"Except me. Naturally, Nudge. I understand. Come on, Fang, we've got to save the world again."

He came out of the dark room and into the light, wearing his pink skinny jeans and Ugg boots, no longer ashamed to show his true self, which was quite a good thing because it encouraged freedom of expression and sexuality and all that but also a little bit foolish. A _lot_ foolish. What if his fangirls saw him? Maximum Ride would _never_ betray her character – and _I_ should know, because I am she! (That was a funny bit. Laugh, you bitch.)

And I didn't wait for him because while it's good to be fashionably late, it's also good to leave them wanting more.

"Max, I don't think you understand – _we're entered for the X-Factor_!" Once more young Nudge screamed, damaging her vocal cords probably irreparably. It wasn't ladylike in the least.

"And I _have_ the X-Factor. What's your problem, Nudgey?" And then it dawned on me, the true horror of the situation, in all of its unbelievably horrifically horrifying horror. "Nudge… are you saying there's a chance I might not win?"

"What? No, Max, that's not it, I didn't –"

"I, Maximum Ride, _will_ win!"

"No, seriously, Max, I don't think you get it –"

"Give us that sexy snarl, hey, babes?" Gazzy suggested, so I turned it on at full force and angled it in his direction. "Nah… I've seen better."

So I turned on the fire extinguisher also at full force and angled it in his direction. He went down choking in a cloud of foamy carbon dioxide, and I turned my teeth to the sun, where they gleamed, and my hair to the wind, where it streamed, and the unbelievably romantically dramatic tension of the moment was barely affected by his puerile suffocation.


End file.
